How to Develop a B2B Marketing Strategy (Instead of a List of Tactics)

How to Develop a B2B Marketing Strategy (Instead of a List of Tactics)
Lots of marketing articles promise information on B2B marketing strategies…and then deliver a list of tactics. While that can be useful, all the best marketing tactics in the world won’t lead to the results you want—unless they’re informed and tied together by an explicit, defined strategy.

Disparate, one-off marketing tactics don’t work together cohesively to move leads through the funnel

When there’s no concrete end-goal for all of your marketing activities, it’s hard for team members to work together toward a common purpose

Without an overarching strategy, it’s basically impossible to know whether you’re even using the right tactics to begin with

The reality is, you can’t pick your B2B company’s marketing strategy from a list in a blog post.

Your marketing strategy has to be created with your specific customers in mind. It needs to take into account your business, your positioning and unique value proposition, and the resources (financial, team, and otherwise) you have available for marketing. And it needs to flow from your current position and situation as a company.

So instead of listing out a bunch of disparate tactics or prescribing a generic, one-size-fits-all strategy, we’re clarifying (once and for all) the difference between a tactic and a strategy—and why that matters. Then, we explain our actionable four-step process for developing your own B2B marketing strategy:

Lay out your position in the market

Explain your target audience and buyer personas

Set goals

Outline your marketing tactics and how you’ll implement them